The Gate to Runeforge

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Rise of the Runelords episode
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Episode no.	Episode 85
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Honeypot Nathaniel Nell
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File:Xin's Stairway.png

The stairs.

Nathaniel woke me early the next morning. I couldn't understand how he could get up so early every morning, even though he was up late last night. I got up and warmed breakfast from the bag of holding. I missed Kaven preparing the breakfast. Not because it was much to do, but he did it better. As we got out of the magical camp it disappeared. Looking around in daylight I found a stairway a little further up, leading along the arm of the mountain-man. We left the druid circle and headed for the stairway.

As we went up the stairs the ground suddenly shook and huge earth elementals emerged and tried to throw us off the cliffs. There was a battle but we defeated them and they crumbled to dust.

Finally reaching the top of the stairs we stood in front of the gaping mouth of the man in the mountain. Icicles hanging from the top of the entrance looked like fangs waiting for us to enter so they could impale us. Inside, in the gloom, we could see several big statues standing like guards along the walls. Or perhaps like molars waiting to chew us. I sneaked up to the nearest one and took a closer look at it, but it was just a statue. It couldn't attack us and I couldn't see anything suspicious. We continued in and Nathaniel lit his flaming sword and it cast it's warm reddish light making the shadows dance. The room inside ended in a slope continuing down the throat of the mountain-man. With suspicion I approached it and took a closer look. It was very slippery. Enough to make it near impossible to stop if you went down it. I also noted that there was a ledge that was very hard to see next to it. It was a trap. I guessed that if someone went down they would go down very fast and not knowing how it ended it could very well kill you. I told the others:
"It's a trap."
"No. It's fun." Honeypot answered and went down the slide.
We could hear her laughter disappear in distance as she quickly raced down the chute. I drew a big arrow on the wall pointing to the ledge with my eternal chalk. When Velicia was finished with her studies and creating magical items she would come following us she would see it and follow us down the ledge. Nathaniel and I went along the ledge that was just wide enough to walk down, instead. Him lighting the way with his sword and me following. I held the chalk to the wall as I walked down, drawing a line. I really like my magical eternal chalk and especially the color. The slide ended in a big hole that was several hundred feet deep. The fall would surely kill anyone unfortunate enough to slide down, but not Honeypot. Luckily she had magic things that could help her fly. With magic some people can survive even if they are too reckless. It could have ended in a wall with spikes and then she wouldn't have been so lucky. The ledge continued winding down along the wall. We continued on, looking down. At the bottom there were seven big stones in a circle and a pillar in the middle. There was a frost covered pile up to the pillar. It was glittering in the dim light. It was not only from frost. I quickened my step and put away the chalk. There was a dragon's treasure waiting for me down there. I love dragon treasures.

There were lots of things in the pile. Everything chosen by the dragon to be worth to keep. Who was I to question a dragon's ability to appraise what it found. But everything was placed in a pile of coins. There were thousands of coins. I had done it before. I poured the copper and silver pieces into my pouch of platinum transforming them into platinum pieces. I made sure not many gold pieces joined them. I like gold at least as much as platinum and with our bags of holding and handy haversacks we could bring most of it without too much trouble, but we had to make room for the other things too. There were nomad tents, arrows, a belt, a box with stuff, a cloak, a flamberge, an armor with onyx ravens on the shoulders and a halfplate with a wolf motif on the chest. I could see that Nathaniel looked at that with a look on his face I recognized. He liked it. There were also six potions that Honeypot said were potions of recovery. I asked what that was and she told me that they were powerful healing potions. I took one. There were also a torch of power, bracers of archery and more. Many of the items looked to have a nomadic look with wolf motifs.